


Let Me Say (Before We Part)

by kayura_sanada



Series: For Good [18]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hawke Feels, Hawke Is Not Perfect, Hawke and Fenris Both Still Have It Bad, M/M, Post-All That Remains, Slight Time Jump, Slow Burn, Spirit Mage Hawke, Worried!Fenris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 12:32:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11737104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayura_sanada/pseuds/kayura_sanada
Summary: Hawke deals with losing his mother. Fenris comes to the mansion to offer what comfort he can.





	Let Me Say (Before We Part)

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Rihanna's "As Real As You And Me" while writing this and nearly cried. Just in case you wanna carve your heart out.

Azzan pounded on Fenris’ door until it opened. Fenris stared, seemingly surprised to find the person making such a racket to be him. “Fenris,” he gasped, and struggled for some semblance of calm. It failed immediately. “Please. I need your help.”

Fenris’ brows scrunched low over his face. “Hawke?”

“My mother’s missing. Ninette’s killer has her.”

* * *

The woman stood from the chair and turned on shaky feet, her head dipped low. The maleficar before him grinned, his voice nearly breathless as he declared his love to his creation – to the face, the body of Azzan’s mother, dressed in some perverse bridal gown, her eyes gray and glassy as if rotted.

His heart stopped. Demon-infested corpses rose, cracking through the ground. His mother’s jaw gaped, but she said nothing. Her face did not twitch in recognition. Her lips, purple with lack of oxygen – because she did not breathe, her shoulders and chest did not rise or fall – slackened. Her hair fell in gentle, familiar waves around a face cracked as if chipping away, skin so pale the dark blue veins stood prominent beneath the flesh.

He screamed. Faith flew away as he raged, staff in hand before he even knew he moved. Lightning crackled in his hands.

* * *

He had done everything he could.

No. That wasn’t true. He’d never asked his mother who she was going with, or what kind of attention she was getting from her suitors. If he’d only known about the flowers. If he’d only gone after her immediately instead of waiting for evening. If only he hadn’t said DuPuis tricked him. If only. If only. If only.

Images flashed in his mind, ones that turned technicolor when he closed his eyes. His mother, eyes glassy, dead even in the remainder of her life, trying to smile with lips already cracked from rigor mortis. His fists clenched in his lap.

His uncle had left hours ago, presumably to grieve in his own way, since by now the letters both Azzan and Gamlen had written for Carver would be long since completed – gambling and alcohol were involved, no doubt. Not that Azzan could judge. If he could bring himself to move from his paralysis, he might be searching their wine cabinet himself. Instead he sat on the side of his bed, nearly motionless. As if he could sleep. As if he could walk past this day, no matter how inexorably time moved forward.

He remembered Bethany. He’d been right there, on the other side of the ogre. So close, yet too far away to reach her. It all happened so quickly. He’d heard her voice, the mantra of prayer from when the two of them had knelt together beside their beds and prayed as one, hands clasped as they reached their voices to the Maker. Both of them believers, and both of them apostates. His father would guide them through the words when they stumbled, his deep voice resonating through the darkness of their chambers. He’d seen her raise her staff against the darkspawn, her hair spilling over her shoulders. And then, before he could so much as raise his own staff to help, the ogre had reached down and – it had been as if she was nothing. In that moment, his life, his family, had meant nothing in the grand scheme of the universe. If the Maker had been watching, he hadn’t cared enough to intervene, and Azzan’s strength had not been enough.

Carver, as well. He’d let his brother have his way, despite knowing that Carver was the least capable of the warriors on their team. Despite knowing Carver would be at a disadvantage – despite fearing all the darkspawn could do still to the family he had left to him. And then to find Carver suffering from the taint – he’d been gifted with luck then, with Anders showing them where to take Carver to give him another chance at life. And, somehow, from the letters he’d received, it seemed like Carver might actually be doing well with the Wardens. He’d been so relieved. So thankful.

That luck had run out when it came his mother's turn.

Without luck, the only thing he’d had on his side was his skill, and how much had that been worth? Going to Moira, to the guards, had netted him absolutely nothing. Despite Aveline and the others searching for his mother, they’d had little success. And him? He had no way of searching that would be any better than theirs.

No, he thought, hating himself for thinking of it, for wanting to use it. For not using it. He knew very well there had been another way. The other way always available for mages. The way that would have granted him access to his mother’s location, to power that could grant him access to that place. Power that could likely have even saved her life.

And he hadn’t taken it. He’d chosen himself over her. How could he? How could he forsake her?

“I don’t know what to say, but… I am here.” He hadn’t heard footsteps, hadn’t been cognizant of the world around him in… hours. Yet all he could muster at the sudden arrival of Fenris was a short glance in the man’s direction.

Only a few days ago, he’d gone to Fenris’ house and spoken with him. Only those few short days ago, he’d thought his grieving heart could, in time, heal, if only given the chance. He’d entered that mansion and told Fenris that he didn’t want to lose the friendship between them. That one night need only be one night, that… he hunched down around himself, nearly curling into a ball on the side of the bed. Nothing had been worked out between them, not really. Yet he couldn’t help feeling better now that Fenris was there. If nothing else, the elf had never spared the truth for his feelings. He studied his shaking fingers. “Am I to blame? For not saving her?”

“I could say no,” Fenris said, and there was no hesitation. The man stepped up to him. “But would that help? You are looking for forgiveness, but I’m not the one who can give it to you.”

Slowly, Azzan looked up to him. Forgiveness? Was that what he was looking for? Did he even think such a thing was possible?

His hands had tried to hold on to what he still had, but he hadn’t been able to grasp anything. He heard Fenris move and jumped, reaching out before he could stop himself. As soon as his hand wrapped around Fenris’ wrist, he let go again, yanking his arm back. He didn’t look at Fenris’ face. Fenris wasn’t his to hold on to, even if he could. He had no right. But one single shaky breath, and he was broken again. “Please don’t leave tonight.”

Silence. He clenched his eyes shut. “I...” The hesitation alone told him everything he needed to know. He told himself not to cling. Their friendship was still too shaky for his needs to get in the way. “I don’t think that would be wise, Hawke.”

He flinched. “That’s not...” He couldn’t find the words and finally just shook his head. “I wouldn’t ask that of you,” he said, and it was a whisper.

Fenris stood beside him, unmoving, a stalwart presence that, if nothing else, broke the horrible, echoing emptiness of the house around him. The mansion he’d gotten back for his mother’s sake, the house that meant nothing without his family within it. He thought of Fenris, holed up in his own mansion, all alone, and hated how much his mansion felt the same. The tapestries were too bright for the suddenly gray walls, the fire in the hearth doused nearly to embers. He didn’t belong here. He didn’t know anyone who belonged in such an ostentatious grave.

“Hawke.”

A touch. A single, simple touch. Azzan looked up again. Fenris’ eyes had never looked so clear. “I apologize. Of course I will stay.”

Hawke hadn’t actually expected Fenris to agree. He’d known they were too far past the simple moments between one another, and it wasn’t Fenris’ job to babysit him. He expected Fenris to go over to the fireplace, perhaps, or to sit at the desk. He thought about trying to set up some practice exercises to keep Fenris occupied – the man had made amazing progress, already through a third of the Book of Shartan, moving slowly through Hawke’s library, reading Hawke’s handmade stories with ease.

Helping Fenris would give him purpose, stave off the worst of this hollow emptiness. But instead of moving away, Fenris came closer. The bed dipped to Azzan’s right, and suddenly heat suffused his side. He shivered. Without thought, he leaned against Fenris, trusting him to take his weight. As soon as Fenris did, the tension lining Hawke’s neck and shoulders and back fell away. All it left in its place was hurt.

“I could have saved her.”

Fenris stiffened. “Hawke.”

“I could have,” he insisted. “All I would have had to do was become a monster.”

Fenris stiffened further, his shoulder turning brittle. “But you didn’t.”

“No.” Azzan shuddered. “I chose to play by the rules, as usual. I didn’t take chances.” He clenched his eyes shut, still seeing the stitching on his mother’s neck, the glazed color of her eyes. Her last words, declaring her pride for him. His shoulders trembled. “Maker, Fenris, I didn’t even think about it. How could I not consider blood magic? And if I had – if I had, would I have done it?”

He expected anger. Almost welcomed it. Blood magic was not something a person brought up to Fenris. But that was exactly why he did it. Fenris wouldn’t bullshit or placate him. He wouldn’t try to soothe Hawke. Hawke didn’t want to be soothed. He wanted to be blamed. He wanted to be hated. He wanted Gamlen to come back and shout at him, demand to know why he didn’t do more.

He wanted his mother back.

“It’s the fact that you didn’t think of it that proves you would not have done it,” Fenris said finally. One gauntleted hand covered Azzan’s knee. The press of flesh against that warm silk brought memories back, memories that suffused him with heat. He bit his lip in shame. Fenris didn’t want such an embrace, and such perverse thoughts had no place beside his mother’s death. “Even at the height of desperation, you held to yourself. Your mother had reason to be proud.”

He flinched. Gamlen would have demanded to know why he hadn’t made a pact. Why he hadn’t done everything he could. Carver would be furious that Azzan’s power hadn’t been enough. So much strength, and he couldn’t reach her side. So much healing power, and none of it useful for someone he loved.

More than either of them, Fenris knew what death meant. With his own hand, he had killed the family he had come to know, simply on the orders of a man he felt trapped beside. He knew what it was to want to take something back, to hate oneself for one’s shortcomings.

Azzan curved his head into Fenris’ shoulder. The armor hurt his skin, but its coolness fought against the horrible flush in his cheeks. The stinging in his eyes that could no longer be ignored. “I have no one left,” he whispered. The words sounded like acid, the whisper a hiss of steam as his world dissolved around him. “I’ve failed everyone.”

Fenris gripped the back of his head and turned, until Azzan’s face crushed into his chest and not his arm. “You didn’t fail them. You did everything you could. I saw your efforts myself. You cannot control the choices of others, Hawke. You can only choose your reaction to them.”

His reaction. He clutched the leather of Fenris’ armor and curled around that earth and cinnamon scent. His reaction hadn’t been enough. And what did it say about him now, that he wished he could use blood magic to bring her back? Hadn’t it been blood magic that had taken her from him? That had twisted her into that… that…

A sob ripped out of his throat before he could stop it. He was the older brother. The leader of their little pack. The one everyone always relied on. When Bethany had died, it had been on his shoulders to carry the rest of his family forward, no matter how broken he’d felt at the time. No matter how much he missed her laughter and horrible puns. No matter how much he hated himself for failing her. When Carver had fallen, it had been on him to find another path, to carry the team to the Wardens, to present a strong, confident face for his ailing brother. It had been on him to accept the blame, to face his mother’s despair upon his return. And now, faced with the loss of his mother, now was when he broke? Here, before someone who needed him to be strong?

He’d sworn to himself that he would help Fenris. But if he did? Now, with no one else to stand with? To return to? What would happen to him if he devoted his life to protecting someone who would inevitably walk away?

He was alone. Slowly, this world had chipped away at everything he’d known, everyone he’d had, and now he was completely, horribly alone.

“’m sorry,” he said, and cried.

It wasn’t the cleansing, soothing kind of cry, but the kind that burned and ached and tore from within, that left his shoulders shaking and his body wracked as if in terrible pain. Tears fell from both corners of his eyes, filled his tear ducts until he couldn’t open them without pain. He knew he looked, sounded, ugly. Snot dribbled out of his nose, his body contorted as if in seizures, his fingers gripped the leather of Fenris’ armor to tightly he feared he would rip it. Great, hiccuping sobs burst through gritted teeth. Every time he tried to contain himself, he lost control all over again.

He couldn’t help his mind’s wanderings. He couldn’t help how he thought again and again of Bethany and of Carver, of Ander’s friend Karl and Ninette and Alessa, of the miners he couldn’t save and the mages he couldn’t free. He thought of the LaDeirn family, their servants, the mother and child, the templar, all of which he’d begun to fear might have something to do with him. The only thing he’d learned since Lothering was how powerless he was.

If he’d thought about how Fenris might react to his sobbing, he might have thought of the man stiffening, of him either gently pushing Azzan away or simply not moving at all, waiting impatiently for Azzan to finish before beating a hasty retreat. Instead Fenris cradled the back of his head, carded his fingers through the mess of Azzan’s hair, and pressed him as close as possible. He didn’t say a word.

He didn’t know how much time passed. He was only aware of the sodden mess Fenris’ outfit became beneath him, how his entire body shook as if wracked with exhaustion, even as another wave of tears ripped out of him as if pulled with tongs from the deep recesses inside him. His face felt inflamed. Slowly, his grip on Fenris loosened, though he did not let go and neither of them pulled away. He felt weak, exhausted, and worse, as if his crying had only made him sick while giving him no relief.

Fenris had told him he was looking for forgiveness. At the moment, it felt as if he was only looking for an escape.

When finally he settled, he was little more than a puppet on cut strings, his body nearly broken by the force of the tears he’d shed. He kept his head ducked low, not certain how to face Fenris after he’d sobbed into the man’s chest for countless minutes. Staying, however, was not an option, and finally he made to move. For a moment, Fenris’ hand resisted his retreat, but then it loosened, and he was able to duck away. “Thank you.”

“I am here,” Fenris said, echoing the words he’d said when he’d first entered Azzan’s room. Azzan shuddered.

He _wanted_ Fenris to be there. He wanted Fenris to be his support. The problem was that Fenris had turned away from him, had decided Azzan couldn’t be the one.

But maybe that was for the best. Azzan clearly wasn’t able to protect anyone. If Hadriana’s hunt brought Danarius to Fenris’ door, how could Azzan ever hope to protect him? How much stronger must he become before he no longer lost those he loved?

How could he forgive himself for not being enough?

When Fenris let him go, Azzan’s gaze caught on the slim red cloth wrapped around the man’s wrist. He quickly wiped his face clean, the silken fabric doing little to wipe off the tears and snot. He shuddered and picked himself up. “I – there’s something...” He grimaced and turned away, not wanting Fenris to see him like this. He felt gross, his eyes felt swollen like they were bruised, and he could swear he’d gone so far as to drool on the poor man. “One second?” He said it like a question, as if to ask Fenris to stay, yet hurried from the room before he could so much as answer.

Smooth.

He hurried to the washroom, grabbed a rag off the basin and dipped it in the cold water. He washed his shirt, shivered horribly at he cold, and cleaned the rag off. He’d run this water up through the house’s pipeline back before he’d searched for his mother, his only thought to finding her and bringing her hope, helping her through her injuries. Helping her, perhaps, through any horrible memories her kidnapper might have given her.

He squeezed the rag so tight it nearly ripped, then cleaned his face. He rinsed it out again, then hurried to his mother’s room.

The frame by the door was one his mother had chosen herself, something she said reminded her of an old painting she’d had when she’d first run off to live with his father. He couldn’t remember the painting she spoke of; they’d left it in the third town they’d gone to, back when Azzan had only been four and Carver and Bethany had been little more than bumps in his mother’s belly. The only thing of Graes he remembered was the hurry in which they left, an odd panic that he hadn’t understood at the time. A year later, when his magic truly manifested, he understood. And in less than a month after that, they’d had to move again – someone had caught him shooting sparks out of his fingers one day after a mabari scared him. His siblings had only been a few months old.

He’d never entered his mother’s room without permission. He’d never truly needed to; his mother disappeared inside sometimes, but she always came out, came to him. He’d never _had_ to chase after her. Somehow, she’d always known when she was needed.

He took a deep breath and opened her door.

The scent of her perfume hit him like a brick. Almost, he collapsed back into tears; the burn of them bit behind his eyes, and he had to blink rapidly to keep them from falling. Even still, they hurt so badly he had to rub at them again.

His mother’s room had a set-up similar to the one she’d had in Lothering, as if she couldn’t bear to part with the way things had been back when his father had been alive. The bed sat against the far wall from the door, the headboard against the middle of the wall so the bed took up space in the middle of the room. In Lothering, that had been enough to greatly dwindle the space in the room. Here, it left an insane amount of space. A nightstand on each side of the bed, an armoire opposite, a vanity table siting in the corner with a small dresser to hold her jewelry. He looked at said dresser, trying to focus on it instead of on the fragrance of white roses or the rose-colored quilt his mother had made herself, rolled up now along the foot of her bed. He touched one smooth, metal handle, pinching it between his thumb and the side of his first finger.

He couldn’t help the whimper as he looked inside. He’d bought many of these items himself, trying to make up for everything his mother had lost when she’d left her home, her family, and then the losses throughout her travels in Ferelden and from their run from Lothering. All the money he’d gotten, what use had he for it? No, his mother was the one who had a weakness for baubles and jewelry, who loved the light gleam of pearls and the iridescence of topaz and aquamarine. She’s been wearing her topaz earrings when he’d seen her go out that morning. They hadn’t been on her body when… when he’d last held her. He didn’t know where they were. Likely gone, lost forever. That man hadn’t had need of them for his ritual, so Darktown had likely swallowed them up.

He touched the empty place where those earrings had once sat, right above the necklace matching it. She hadn’t worn that. Why not? Had she expected a new necklace that night? Or had she wanted to show off the line of neck to collarbone, a feature she claimed to be one of her best?

A feature permanently scarred in his mind by the red line sewn into the whitened skin?

He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head. This wasn’t what he was there for. She had something. She’d told him about it, her lips wide in a bright smile, her voice so certain when she’d said, simply, “just in case.”

Just in case. She’d somehow known, likely from the start, that his feelings for Fenris ran too deep for heartbreak to wash them out. And so she’d had this made _just in case_. In case things somehow worked out for them.

He opened the second drawer, and there it was, just as she’d promised. He caressed the lines etched into the metal, the bright red filigree in the now familiar pattern. It took him too many long moments, but finally he found the strength to lift it. His fingers curled around the metal as if to shield it somehow, yet his feet, when he turned back to his room, marched steadily forward.

Fenris hadn’t moved by the time he returned. Even more to Azzan’s surprise, the elf didn’t appear to have attempted to clean himself up in that time, either. Slowly, Azzan moved back to Fenris and knelt before him. For the moment, he placed his mother’s gift on the floor, just beneath the bed, and reached up with the cloth. Leather wasn’t best wet, but it was better wet with water than with snot and tears. Azzan would have left it before his hearth if he had any belief at all that Fenris would stay long enough for him to do so. As it was, he could only assume that the man would do the same once he returned to his mansion.

For the moment, cleaning the leather was the best he could do. Yet when he started wiping Fenris clean, Fenris reached a single gauntleted hand down and cupped Azzan’s hand against his chest. Azzan stared at their joined hands for a moment, then looked up. “Allow me,” Fenris said. Azzan didn’t know how to argue. He let go of the rag. Fenris took it in his hand and scrubbed at the leather with practiced, economical movements.

Without the rag to keep his busy, Azzan found himself momentarily lost. Only the sight of metal glinting in the low embers of the hearth got him moving once more.

He picked up the item and stood. Fenris barely glanced up from his self-ministrations, but when he saw what Azzan had in his hand, he paused. “Hawke…”

Azzan held up his free hand, still slightly damp from holding the rag. “Don’t. Just let me say this first.” He took a deep breath, worried at the stiffness that ha returned to Fenris’ shoulders. “I never told my mother how I felt… about my attraction to you,” he said, switching before he went too deep. “She figured it out on her own. I don’t know if she had this made before… that night, or not, but she – this was made for you.”

Fenris looked down at the crest in Azzan’s hand, the red lines that formed the Amell crest – the Hawke crest, now. He sucked in a shaking breath. “I know you…” He couldn’t find the right words. Anything would sound accusing, or needy, or… “But this is yours. Whether you want it or… from this moment on, whatever happens to it is your decision.” Fenris looked up at him, his emerald eyes wide. “I just don’t want her last gift for someone to sit wasted in a drawer.”

Before he could talk himself out of it – before he could even give Fenris the right to refuse – he pulled Fenris’ empty hand out and thrust the crest into it. The metal clinked against the gauntlet.

“Whatever you do with it,” he said, his voice husky as he fought the damnable tears again, “it’s yours to choose. I won’t be angry or upset. I swear.”

Fenris’ fingers curled tight around the crest. It was a good sign. Fenris’ lips moved. He looked down at the crest, traced his thumb over the etched filigree. He said nothing.

This was the best time – or, perhaps, the only time that might have a chance of seeming appropriate – so Azzan went the extra step. “One more thing.” Fenris watched as Azzan moved to his own dresser and opened the top drawer. It had been ridiculously stupid, but the moment he’d realized Fenris was still wearing that makeshift favor, he’d searched for something more suitable. He knew Fenris instantly understood when those eyes widened again. “I’m not trying to start anything. But…” His gaze flickered over to Fenris’ wrist, where the favor still lay, wrapped around the gauntlet like a ribbon. Like a testimony. Azzan held a handkerchief in his hand, one of five he’d bought when his mother had taken him out to get ‘proper’ clothes. He’d worn it only once, when he’d visited the Keep to be officially reinstated as a man of noble lineage, but it was the best item he had, and it held within it the memory of having done right by his mother and his family – and the price those efforts had paid.

Fenris neither retreated or demanded Hawke stop. Still, Azzan hesitated. He chose to kneel before Fenris again. The man placed the rag down on the bed, freeing up the arm that carried the strip of cloth Hawke had once tied around that wrist. Azzan touched Fenris’ knee. “I wanted to do this right.”

Fenris just blinked at him.

“I know you likely thought it a joke,” he said, but then couldn’t think of why Fenris would keep the cloth, if that was the case. He forced himself calm. Forced himself to say what he needed to. Just in case he failed Fenris like he did his mother.

Maker, he couldn’t think like that and still function.

He ducked his head to keep Fenris from seeing the tears in his eyes. When he breathed in again, it sounded wet. “You’ve always been my shield, Fenris. From the moment we met, you made sure I stood strong. Just like now. You try to protect me even from things I can’t be protected from. You’ve done this despite my being a mage, despite having troubles of your own. Despite that night.” He reached out his hand. “You’ve defended me against everything I’ve come across. I know it may seem hard to believe, Fenris, but to me, you truly are my knight.”

More silence. He’d left the man flabbergasted into speechlessness.

Azzan held his breath and held up the ‘kerchief. “Is it all right?”

Fenris looked like his brain had floated off down the stairs somewhere. “Wouldn’t a knight kneel to his lady?” Fenris asked. The words seemed like they should have been a joke, but there was nothing but breathless shock in the elf’s voice.

Azzan tried on a smile. “Do I look like a lady?”

Fenris trailed his gaze from the tip of Azzan’s hair to the tangled mess around his shoulders. The tension between them broke for a moment. “This isn’t necessary, Hawke.”

There was an extra weight to the words, a reminder that it couldn’t mean anything, that Fenris wasn’t able to give more. Azzan shook his head. “I don’t know what to call us,” he admitted. “But you’re more than a friend to me. What I said to you at the mansion wasn’t a lie. I’m not ever going to demand more from you, and I don’t want you giving or doing anything you don’t want. But you’re important. You’re…” He struggled to find the right word. Flushed. Loose tendrils of hair fell around his cheeks, hopefully hiding the worst of it. “Irreplaceable.”

Fenris sighed. Silently, he held out his hand.

Reverently, Azzan removed the cloth ripped from his bed curtains. He laid the strip down against Fenris’ knee – not trashing it, because it and what it represented was not trash. Simply upgrading it. The new cloth was bright red, the dye newly drenched into the fabric, so bright it might as well have been blood. A blood pact. A promise.

Perhaps he was only doing this because he needed a constancy in his life. Perhaps he was doing it to stake some sort of claim, no matter how small. And perhaps Fenris was accepting because he’d just witnessed Azzan fall apart against him. But somehow it still felt all right as Azzan curled the charmeuse handkerchief around Fenris’ armor. The fabric was light against the hard metal, but folded in a strip, it managed to keep from sliding around the hard ridges like water. The last of the hearth’s light shone like sunlight against the cloth, glinted like a torch against the gauntlet. Azzan sat back with a smile.

“Thank you. For tonight. For today. For everything.”

Fenris touched the silk with a caress so light it barely seemed to make contact at all. His gaze was intent, laced with something like wonder. Hawke ached so fiercely it stole his breath.

His mother would be so proud of him. He was certain she’d approve. Not just of his actions, but of his choice. If he was going to love anyone, certainly it had to be Fenris.

And she’d agreed. She’d agreed, or else she’d never have had that crest made.

He stood. Fenris turned from his new favor, seeming to come out of a trance. “I scared Faith away with my fury earlier this evening, and I’m sure it’s not excited to come back after I thought about blood magic. I need to speak with it.”

Life went on. It continued, even when the people trapped within it could not. He didn’t think he could protect anyone. He didn’t think he had to strength to do anything. But he still needed to do what he could. He still needed to press forward. This night would end, and in the morning he would no longer have the stench of death in his nostrils. In the morning, he would wake from his nightmares of this night and stumble down those steps, and he would have Bodahn and Sandal and Orana to face. In the morning, a new day would come, and he would be alone in his room. Life continued on at its own pace. “I’ve kept you too long.”

It was a dismissal. A kind one, but a dismissal, nonetheless. Fenris caught it immediately. He stood, as well. “Is there… anything else I can do?”

“You made certain I wasn’t alone. More than anything, I needed to be reminded of that.” Another smile, and it was a bit easier this time. It didn’t feel natural, its heaviness a new weight to carry. But at least part of it was real. “The only thing that can help me now is time.”

“Then you have it. As long as you need. As you have me.” Fenris made an aborted move to wrap his hand around his favor. Azzan didn’t know if it was the crest still clutched in his hand or the knowledge that Azzan would notice that stopped him.

“You are my dearest friend, Fenris,” Azzan said, though he knew the word wasn’t strong enough for what he felt. Still, it was as close as they could get. “This all would have been unbearable if you hadn’t been here.”

Fenris turned his head away. The man’s bangs hid those eyes from him. “If you need me, I am yours to call on.”

“You know the same goes for me, Fenris. Always.” Azzan held out his hand. Fenris turned his head to stare at it. Slowly, he took Hawke’s hand in his grip.

“Always,” he allowed.

* * *

When the morning came, so did another letter.

_I am so sorry for the loss of your mother, my bird. I will ensure nothing like this ever happens again._


End file.
